The Fires of the Borderlands
by Tha Kalligrapha
Summary: An unlikely affair throws Daffy Duck's world into chaos.
1. A Small, Good Thing

**The Fires of the Borderlands  
**Tha Kalligrapha

Looney Tunes characters, names, and all related indicia  
are registered trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment.

* * *

Chapter One  
**A Small, Good Thing**

"'Dis is it, Daffy," said Bugs softly, with an elegant smirk. "One good line drive and I'm twenty-six under par," his eyes slid enticingly down the base of his club. "Even 'da Masters don't put up numbers like 'dat too often."

"The Masters also don't play on this course too often," I chimed in fiendishly.

Normally, such a comment would've come off as crude and borderline irritating, but since I hadn't taken a shot in nearly six holes, my opinion was more of an unkind afterthought than a sporting jab. This game, at least, belonged to Bugs and there was no denying that. I'd stopped taking shots sometime around the tenth hole after my ball had suddenly stopped dead in the air and careened straight into an awaiting water trap. Somehow, from that point on, watching Bugs play out the game of his life under shadowy, rain-heavy storm clouds seemed far more worthwhile than pretending I actually knew anything about golf.

"So? Sophistication don't mean a thing," he went on semi-sarcastically, calmly digging his heels into the fairway. "It's all about 'da swing o' yer' club, 'dat's all—and some people do it better 'dan others."

Glancing sideways, he shot me a snidely, buck-toothed grin. My bill curled up unenthusiastically. He was better than me and both of us knew it—no need for words.

"Just hit the damn thing already," I mumbled disparagingly. "If you don't hurry it up, we're gonna wind up soaked."

For once, I was telling the truth. Although no rain had begun to fall just yet, it was plain to see, even to the least observant onlooker, that a considerably large downpour was all but imminent. No wonder the place seemed so depopulated.

I, too, would've stayed at home had it not been for Bugs's pleading last-minute request, one which, for whatever reason, had seemed so worthwhile at the time.

"C'mon, buddy," he'd said emphatically over the phone, "just one round. It'll be fun, trust me. S'posed to be a beautiful day tomorrow. I'll even make sandwiches."

Backed into a corner and starting to give way, I sighed with obvious reluctance.

"Why so interested in hanging out all of a sudden?" I inquired capriciously. "Don't we see each other enough already?"

"Sure, it's just…"

A long, defenseless pause…

"I can't remember 'da last time we actually did somethin', y'know, _outside_ o' work—like we used to, back in 'da sixties." He smacked his lips noisily, as if to hide his humility. "Whatever happened to 'da wild, fun-lovin' Daffy I used to know?"

"Buried under fifty-odd years of the same old schtick…"

"So let's forget about it for a couple o' hours. C'mon, Daffy. God knows you don't get out often enough."

I took offense to that.

"I have… responsibilities of my own, Bugs," I responded intensely. "If I'm gone, who's supposed look after Melissa for me?" Like a stone, my heart sank at the very thought of it. "You know how lonely she gets…"

My voice trailed off despondently. It was a topic I'd always dreaded introducing, yet found myself discussing at great lengths with an unusual frequency, oftentimes with people I barely knew; friends-of-friends, mild acquaintances. The stigma of it all was far too overbearing, far too prevalent, for me to hide from.

"If she doesn't get her medicine three times a day like the doctors said... Bugs, I don't have a choice. I'd _like_ to go. I really would, but…"

Silence hung between us for several empty, impenetrable seconds, like thick, humid air on a sticky midsummer's morning. Melissa—her name alone was a conversation-killer these days. Frail and bed-ridden, her ongoing bout with lung cancer repeatedly left me in a difficult position. Still, I tried not to think about it, tried to force out any stray, remorseful thoughts I might've felt, and focused as exclusively as possible on my own miserable life, going about my various daily routines as though I had no wife because, in many ways, I no longer did.

"What if I asked Honey to come spend a lil' time wit' her?" he pressed on unbeatably. "Would 'dat make ya' feel any better?"

"Y—you really think she'd be willing to do that?" I stuttered in disbelief.

"O' course she would," he replied assuredly. "'Dose ol' girls go way back. It'd be fun for 'em to see each other again, don't ya' think?"

"I don't know. Sure wouldn't be the same."

"C'mon, doc, don't worry about it," he jibed impatiently. "Everything'll work out just fine—it always does. Besides, d'ya' really think Melissa would want ya' to stop havin' fun just 'cause o' 'da way she is right now? Honestly, Daff, you could use a good break from time to time. Too much stress is hard on the immune system."

"Is that a fact?" I muttered sarcastically. "Fine, if you can get Honey to stay here while I'm gone," I paused for a moment, as though hesitant to commit just yet, "I'll go."

"Great. I knew ya' would."

And so it all came down to this: teetering on the brink of a completely wasted afternoon, the rain unapologetically ruining all our plans, with awful sandwiches to boot. What a joyous, stress-free occasion this all had been, I thought to myself, smirking inwardly, bored out of my mind.

I suppose I should've known. After all, a day with Bugs was like a day with the president. The whole world revolved around him, and everybody knew it—everybody except for him, of course.

Measuring the distance to the putting green one last time, he reared back suddenly with both arms—a slightly flawed upward swing—and in one fluid motion, brought the club back down in an overlong, swooping circular arc that sent his little white Titlist flying…

… straight into the woods.

I couldn't help but furrow my brow in mild astonishment.

"Wow. That one really hooked, didn't it?"

He flipped his club upside-down and rested his weight on top of it, staring blankly off into the distance as though the ball might suddenly reappear somewhere close to the putting green.

"Yeah, it did." He frowned disappointedly.

A slight chill on the back of my neck, about the size of a dime, made me jump. I held my hands out in front of me, palms upward, towards the clouds. Raindrops.

Finally, I thought.

One, and then another, landing squarely at the tips of my fingers—a slow start for certain, but bound to pick up soon. I pulled myself to my feet, the crisp-cut grass crumbling beneath the soles of my shiny white sneakers.

"Don't worry about it, Bugsy," I said quietly. "You played a heck of a game."

"'Dere's still time, y'know?" he returned with an air of desperation. "I can still go after it."

"If you wanna stand around, knee-deep in tall grass, gettin' soaked, be my guest, but I'm headin' back. Sorry to disappoint ya'."

I gave him a soft, reassuring pat on the shoulder and turned restlessly back towards the club house, stamping my right foot all the way in a meager attempt to wake it from its stubborn slumber. Why did I even bother to leave the house this morning? I continued to wonder, half-limping, as though walking on air. I'd barely touched a golf club my entire life, so what sick, uncontested impulse had urged me to tag along today? Bugs wasn't really _that_ persuasive, was he?

I shut my eyes, and a few seconds later, he rejoined me at my side, carrying his clubs with him, jogging along just to keep up in the wake of the impending rain shower.

"Twenty-six under par, right, doc?" he cried out gleefully. "You saw it, didn't ya'?"

Somehow, I managed a smile. "If you say so, Bugsy. If you say so."

* * *

"Daffs," he bit his lower lip, butchering my name for 'buddy's sake,' "I've got a confession to make."

"Oh, really? Just one?" I snorted.

We were in the sauna now, toweled up and sweating out the bitter aftertaste of our afternoon deferred, still an hour or so before either of us were due back at our respective households.

Bugs sat on one side with his back against the wall, and I on the other with my head in my hands and my eyes half-lidded. The dim lighting and jagged, wooden walls, intercut with deep, rolling shadows left me feeling slightly claustrophobic, although the humidity was such that I had difficulty concentrating on it.

"Alright," I murmured, seeing as he wasn't amused. "What's the problem now, buster?"

He hesitated. "Well, I guess it's not so much of a confession as it's… " he trailed off, cleared his throat, and tried again. "Well, let's just put it 'dis way—I've got a small favor to ask ya'."

My eyelids slid open all the way, suddenly very alert and inappropriately wary. "A favor? What kinda favor? What're you talkin' about?"

"Don't worry, doc," he responded quickly, noticing the look on my face, "it's an easy one."

I sat up straight, resting my back against the moistened wall and crossing my arms diligently across my chest. Great, now I've got a homework assignment, I remarked snidely to myself.

"Y'see, I'm headed outta town next month," Bugs explained obliviously. "Pepsi wants me to shoot a commercial for 'em in San Francisco—"

"_Pepsi?"_ I grumbled edgily, my bill turned steadfastly towards the wall. "You don't even drink Pepsi."

"I just bought a twelve-pack yesterday," he responded defensively.

I shrugged my shoulders and frowned, unconvinced. "Fine. You were saying… ?"

"Well, it's a three-day shoot, but 'dey said I might be up 'dere for about a week-and-a-half. So, in 'da meantime, it'd be great if you could… y'know… drive Honey to work for me… while I'm gone."

At first I didn't say anything. Drive Honey to work? What kind of favor was that? And why couldn't she drive herself?

"Why can't she drive herself?" I asked, the road from my brain to my beak less traveled.

"C'mon, doc, d'ya' have any idea how pampered she is? Heir to a rich oil tycoon, the only kit to her litter—just like me, 'cept I never grew up in 'da high Hollywood hills." I screwed up my face as he continued. "She doesn't know how to drive a car, Daff, and she's too chicken to learn it now."

"So lemme get this straight," I interjected airily, "you want me to drive your _wife_ to work every day for a week-and-a-half while you're off in San Francisco gettin' paid six figures to drink free Pepsi?"

He chuckled uncomfortably. "Seven."

"Oh, seven figures? Even better," I could've puked right then and there. "And what about me? I assume I'll be receiving some sort of monetary compensation as well?"

"What? No. No compensation." He seemed appalled at the very thought of it. "Yer' doin' me a favor, Daffy, a _favor. _B'sides, you already owe me one after today."

My eyes narrowed conspicuously. "Owe you? For what?"

"Remember? You didn't even wanna come along 'dis afternoon 'til I made sure Honey could watch Melissa for ya'. Sound familiar?"

"Oh, so _that's_ how it is!" I exclaimed brashly, deeply offended. "You force a favor down my throat just so you can choke it back outta me when the time's right? Oh, yeah—real classy, Bugs. Real classy."

"Look, 'dat's not 'da way it was s'posed to come out." He wiped a few stray beads of sweat from his brow. "I'll admit, I came here today wit' 'dat in mind, but honestly, all I really wanted was for 'da two of us to have a good time together—to get away from it all, y'know?"

He broke off for a moment, then, as if to reestablish himself, and I couldn't help but glance at the walls in shame. His gaze was far too innocent to bear.

"I was just hopin' you'd understand," he went on slowly. "But, hey, nobody's got a gun to yer' head. I can't force ya' to do it. I can always ask Sylvester… or Marvin… or Wile E…"

We sat in silence for several minutes after that—dead, morose, void-like silence—neither of us ever fully committing to any sustained eye contact. Inside, I was conflicted. I felt guilty for biting his head off so quickly, making assumptions, all that insensitive jazz, but at the same time, I didn't feel any true prodding desire to make up for it either.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, I considered optimistically. Chauffeur… for a week… and-a-half? I could do that. The only real challenge would come with making small talk with… _Mrs._ Bunny, I supposed. Is that what she'd want me to call her? Mrs. Bunny?

Looking up, at last, from a pool of my own discomfiture, I exhaled slowly and bumped my head intentionally against the wall behind me, staring blankly up towards the dewy, unpolished ceiling, a look of concession written all over my face.

"Alright," I said sleepily, slapping my knee with an open palm, "I'll do it. Don't worry. I'll do it."

And that was that.

My eyes flicked nervously from side-to-side, finally coming to rest on the first aberration in their line of sight. It was Bugs's shoulder—his entire left arm, in fact, and his right, not to mention his brow. There, lingering on the very bristles of his silvery fur, emerging soundlessly between each crystalline bead of sweat, emerged a sort of soft, soap-like residue which curled and swept and rolled down his shoulders like a trickle of wet paint on an elegant, brazen surface.

My heart skipped a beat. He was looking right at me, following my gaze, down my body and up his own. His ears twitched excitedly, and neither of us said a word for a moment. Finally, then, as though it were a common nuisance, he reached up slowly with one gloved hand and gently brushed away the thin, sudsy substance coming through his pores, smiling softly all the while.

"No need to look so shocked, doc," he stated calmly. "It's not like it's a habit or anything."

**You have no idea  
what you're getting yourself into.**


	2. Anomalous Disturbances

Chapter Two  
**Anomalous Disturbances**

The next day, I left home in an unusually unpleasant mood.

My alarm clock went off an hour early, and then again an hour late, even after I'd sleepily reset it. As if that wasn't enough, it soon became apparent to me, shortly after rolling restlessly out of bed and dragging myself wearily to the bathroom, that overnight the water heater had unexpectedly short-circuited, thus assuring that my morning shower be every bit as crisp and chilly as an emperor penguin's toenails. Just another call to make, I supposed. But even that wasn't good enough.

One-handedly sliding back the dresser drawer, I quickly realized that in the past week or so I'd completely forgotten to do laundry. Not a T-shirt, not a single pair of jeans was clean. My mind made haste and I hurriedly ironed up the front side of a wrinkled Los Angeles Lakers jersey from the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper and threw on some equally-wrinkled jeans and a slightly oversized undershirt to compliment it.

Bad luck, like an abandoned puppy, seemed to follow curiously in my wake—this I had always acknowledged. Ever since my less-than-adequate birth—which, appropriately enough, had occured a full seven days ahead of schedule—my life had yielded little more than a continuous string of monotonous misfortunes. Heavy things fell on my head; clothes shrunk or bled colors when I washed them; people scuffed my shoes, as though intentionally, the first time I wore them; fragile objects turned to butter in my fingertips and shattered like chicken eggs when they hit the ground. I was a klutz, a doofus, a clumsy, unreliable, flat-footed, no-good waterfowl with an irritating lisp—and there was nothing I could do about it.

In fact, for the most part, I'd managed to grow fairly accustomed to it. After all, it wasn't _always _a complete washout, as some with similar symptoms would've surely testified. There _were_ indeed positives, no matter how unfairly outweighed they may have been. For instance, no one ever asked me to help them move, or to carry anything special for them, or to arrive on time for any critical event. For most people, my success rate was far too iffy to chance risking everything all for the sake of little old me and my little old feelings. But I didn't mind. Really—I didn't.

Gently nursing a burnt index finger and mentally berating myself, I silently set aside the ironing board a few minutes later and sidled my way reluctantly towards the kitchen. My stomach was growling. Unfortunately, a small family of moths seemed to have laid eggs lovingly inside my last box of Corn Flakes. Why not the crackers or the mixed nuts? I asked myself with a frown. Perhaps it wouldn't have mattered so much either way; the last gallon-jug of milk in the refrigerator had also gone sour.

I spilled coffee all over the morning paper and just barely escaped being doused myself as a whole cupful of thick French roast rolled in dense, brown beads down the side of the breakfast table. Worse yet, as an enormous groan would soon entail, I was fresh out of hand soap and paper towel. Thus, momentarily stepping aside to conjure up a much-needed grocery list, I hastily sopped up most of the mess with an unreasonably tiny dish sponge, my blood pressure rising steadily all the while.

Once I'd successfully scrubbed the table clean, I gazed down for a moment at my cheap, silver-plated wristwatch, biting my tongue like a horse in pain.

"5:01," it read incorrectly, neither hand so much as twitching. Dead batteries, I thought. Lucky, lucky me. Sighing intensely, I rubbed my eyes in disgust, knocking contact lenses way out of position in the process.

Melissa, at least, wasn't having a bad day—yet. Every waking moment, I knew, was torture for her. She'd described it to me a number of times, every facet of it, in elaborate detail. The tightness in her chest, the burning, the inability to breathe, all of it made me squirm. It made me sick to the stomach to think that I should complain about a cold shower and spilled coffee when she was still too weak even to stand. All the chemicals they'd fed her over the years had taken such a crippling toll on her body to the point, now, where she could do little but lay in bed all day, suffering constantly from the pain of seclusion.

It hurt me just to look at her these days; that's why I slept in the guest bedroom upstairs and left her to the master, to the bed we used to share.

She was still quite asleep when I crept in soundlessly to administer her first shot of the day. She didn't even budge as the needle went in, all the painkillers numbing her nerve endings like a groping fistful of novacaine. I avoided looking directly into her face, no matter how dormant it may have appeared, and when at last I'd finished, filed out of the room as noiselessly as possible. I didn't want her to see me, didn't want her to hear me. I couldn't stand it. The cold, empty look in her eyes, the wobbling, undertone whisper of her voice, the eerie frailty which turned her bones to jelly, just a glimpse of it, I knew, would surely haunt me for hours to come.

Suffice it to say I felt more comfortable leaving her to herself than sitting supportively at her bedside, but that's not to say I didn't care. I did. I just didn't have it in me to make her feel better, or, worse yet, to stomach the very image of her stifling illness. I simply couldn't bring myself bear it.

So I didn't.

* * *

I took to the road sometime around ten in a flashy '06 Zephyr and slowly laid into my daily dose of morning news.

Some Congressman was getting booted out of the House for sleeping with another Congressman's wife—lovely. A little white girl went missing somewhere in south-central Manhattan, but was recovered shortly thereafter thanks to an anonymous tip—touching. Two convicted serial killers escaped from a maximum security prison in Cleveland and actually managed to avoid detection—despicable.

AM radio was still my pre-breakfast darling, no matter how fragile and uncouth it may have seemed to some. After all, who else could I trust? The news, like everything else on radio and television these days, was merely a subtler form of entertainment—all about the many pleasantries and lustrous timing, the headlines, no matter how grave, nearly always riding shotgun. Still, it often helped start my day off on the right note to listen to some nameless jabberwocky carry on about other peoples' strife and misfortunes for fifteen seconds at a time.

Besides, it wasn't as if I needed to pay any great deal of attention to the road at the moment. I'd driven this route hundreds of times—snaking down the hills, into the valley, wading patiently through light after light. Navigating these old streets, I thought, was as simple as clockwork. Today, however, I was on a mission.

A few weeks back, I'd submitted my greatest brainchild—a lengthy, one hundred-eighty page screenplay—to the only major film studio I still felt, at this point, I could trust. A small offshoot of Warner Bros.—even smaller than Warner Independent—this little masquerade, which liked to call itself "Warner Classic," was founded by Wile E Coyote in 1999, a milestone in the making. Since then, his independent approach towards major motion pictures had garnered him a staggering total of ten Academy Awards, including one "Best Picture." Therefore, keeping our shared history as public buffoons in mind, it made sense that I should take my latest masterpiece, first and foremost, to his doorstep.

No more slip-ups, I assured myself. This time, I'd cater to the sophisticated crowd. More recent attempts to recapture my World War limelight had, as expected, gone unfulfilled. The same-old, same-old just didn't cut it anymore—not in this day and age—and one could only hope that all those painfully boring, unreleased cartoons from the mid-nineties never fell into the wrong hands. I grimaced at the very thought of it. A few of them never even made it past the cutting room floor. Apparently, taking slug after slug to the face just wasn't funny anymore, not to mention all the "political incorrectness." Not that I enjoyed it. It wasn't the laughs or the surreality of constant hype that I lived for; it was the fame, the fame and the money. Nothing more.

As an added incentive, I'd even declined to star in my latest film. This sudden return to the movie scene, I'd attempted to make abundantly clear, was less about appearing successful to the masses and more about getting my name out where it belonged again, back in the business, one last shot at sticking my foot in the door.

The lot outside of Wile E's office was, for the most part, small and depressing, like a rude reminder of every slow fuse Hollywood beginning ever devised. Only a cheap plastic sign smashed into the grass out front was there to identify it: "Warner Classic; private office of Wile E Coyote; actor, director, writer, producer."

I pulled in through the front gate and parked unknowingly in one of the two handicap spots, also slamming the baggy folds of my oversized golden jersey in the car door as I attempted to step out in haste. I was late—only by a few minutes, but with my luck, I might as well have shown up a full hour behind schedule. It wouldn't have made a difference. Late was late in my world; there were no give-or-takes.

Nevertheless, mindful of my current situation and all that it meant to me, I decided to turn a blind eye to my past misfortunes and head on in, in spite of the odds.

The lobby was small and rectangular, furnished like a doctor's office with lots of rubber plants and worn out couches. Off-white wallpaper made the whole place appear sterile—and the magazines twice as bland. A lone window in the corner sent long yellow blades of crisp morning light forking sporadically throughout the room, forcing me to squint uncomfortably as I entered. A trapped fly buzzed irritably somewhere close by.

The secretary, a tall, lanky, cream-colored rabbit of about Bugs's age, instantly recognized me as she looked up, waving me over from her self-important booth inside the wall, flipping through a tall stack of disorganized papers like an overworked stockbroker. I crossed the room and leaned impatiently against the counter, drumming my fingertips rhythmically behind her pen case and coffee mug, waiting for her to break the silence.

"Here to see Wile E?" she said at last, holding her head in her hands.

I nodded. "Didn't miss him, did I?"

"Well, that all depends," she replied with a sly look in her eyes. "He should be leaving for lunch any minute now—"

"_Lunch?"_ I interjected. "But we had an appointment…"

"Well, when you didn't show up—" the door to her right cleaved her explanation in two.

"Daffy!" said Wile E with a jovial smile, suddenly entering the room. "Just the duck I've been looking for!"

"Yeah, sorry I'm late."

"No, don't worry about it!" He gave me a fierce pat on the back. "Say, I just got a call from an old friend of ours; Sylvester. Not sure if the two of you've been keeping up over the years, but he and I go way back. Anyway, he offered to buy me brunch at the mall this morning so we could talk and, well, I just couldn't refuse! You're welcome to come if you like. We can talk about your script!"

"Yeah. Right. The script," I droned, unenthused.

Wile E didn't notice. "Great!" he exclaimed with another pat—this time to the shoulder. "You won't regret it." He turned to his secretary, then. "Keep an eye on the place for me, would you, Lola? I should be back in a couple of hours, but don't cancel anything. Just put it all on hold for the time being, alright?"

She acknowledged him with her eyes only and made a few quick scribbles on her clipboard, never opening her mouth. She knew him all too well, I thought, grimacing inwardly as he guided me out the door.

Wile E's car, as expected, was a blue two-door Prius with "Impeach Bush!" and "Low Emissions" stamped, like party flyers, all over its ass. Together, the two of us barely fit in the front without folding our arms and bending our knees accordingly. Funny how someone like him could ever manage to be comfortable in such a shortchanging vehicle, I mused. After all, _he_ was the tall one. Standing six-foot-nine, just barely over two hundred pounds, he looked more like a stick than a coyote. Factor in his repugnant dress code—bright, messy Hawaiian shirts, sunglasses, zip-off shorts, and flip-flops—and suddenly I was spending my morning with a walking attention-getter. Not that I minded, of course, but attention for all the wrong reasons was something completely different, something, quite frankly, I could do without.

"Hope you don't mind Bob Marley," he said rhetorically, adjusting the red and green Mardi Gras beads that hung lifelessly from his rearview mirror.

"Whatever you've got," I muttered back, folding my arms complacently across my chest. "Whatever you've got."

* * *

By the time we arrived in the food court, Sylvester had already been waiting by himself for several minutes. All alone at a table for four right next to the penny fountain, he seemed to resonate with an eerie, unpredictable sort of presence, like a pedophile on a playground bench. It wasn't until I'd sat down myself, however, that I realized brunch wasn't _completely_ on him. He'd only bought _two_ containers of Kung Pao chicken, not three.

"Wish I'd known you were coming, Daffy," he remarked unsubtly, lisping spit all over the table. "I would've got you something."

"Sure," I didn't mumble sarcastically.

"The duck's great here."

Wile E glared at him, but he never noticed his own faux pas.

"I bet it is, Sly," I frowned incredulously. "I bet it is."

Something about Sylvester had always rubbed me the wrong way. He seemed pompous beyond his years—or at least socially inept. Whatever it was, I could never quite put my finger on it. Perhaps I was simply destined to dislike him. Made about as much sense as my milk spoiling or my watch batteries going dead, I supposed. Not a bad theory.

The conversation lingered for a while on sports and current events—all the usual stuff—nobody really digging any deeper than they had to. Lakers or Clippers—which team's better? Of course the Lakers—but then again, what about Elton Brand? What about Kobe? Back and forth, like a metronome. Eventually, I got up and grabbed a slice of pizza from one of the nearby restaurants to quell the pounding hunger-headache rattling around the back of my skull and returned to find them dwelling on an entirely different subject altogether.

"You do realize," said Sylvester slowly, "that we, as a people, as a race, are completely uncultured, completely uselessto the rest of the world, right?"

I sat down cautiously, uncertain if either of them had even noticed me return. How did we get from basketball to _this?_ I wondered silently to myself. Suddenly the enormous, Chicago-style slice of pizza in my hand seemed somewhat primitive in comparison to their urbane conversation—useless, perhaps, to paraphrase some of Sylvester's emboldened lingo.

Wile E turned his nose up disparagingly and let out an exhausted sigh.

"Really?" he said flatly. "And why is that again?"

"C'mon, I don't have to explain it to _you._ You've been around the world; you've seen what other cultures have to offer. Just think about it. Just think about what _they_ have and what _we've_ been missing."

"_What, _Sly? What have we been missing?"

"_What have we been missing?"_ He made a face as though the very question itself were enough to nauseate him. "Wile E, we've been missing everything! We've already _missed_ the whole fucking point! Just think about it!" He lowered his voice after a low rumble of uneasy whispers emerged from a table close by.

"Look, if we had to depend upon our people to eat, we would starve to _death," _he went on. "No question about it. Look around you." His hand directed our eyes slowly from storefront to storefront. "Look at all these restaurants," he demanded. "Name _one—_just _one—_that you would consider a product of our culture, a product of our people even being here…"

Wile E seemed to be drawing a blank at the moment. His eyes dodged anxiously back and forth, never quite coming to settle on any one subject in particular.

"Well," he stammered, "you—you can't go by _this_ place. I mean, this—this is a mall. I'm sure that _somewhere_ in _some_ city there's a little café or something that—"

"Wile E, have you ever _heard_ of a place serving 'authentic cartoon food?' Have you?"

Rather jerkily, then, as though he were extremely reluctant to abandon the idea, Wile E shook his head.

"Right," Sylvester smirked. "That's because it doesn't exist." He scooped a small spoonful of rice and chicken into his mouth and savored it for a moment. "See, our people _have_ no food. We _have _no language. We _have_ no music. Every other race the world over has some sort of obvious defining trait, some sort of specific historical baggage which nudges the collective culture in a certain direction—_everyone… _except for us. We don't have that. We don't have anything to call our own, and we never will, not as long as ninety percent of us are in the entertainment industry, and the other ten percent are unemployed."

Wile E cracked his knuckles. "Trust me, Sly, it isn't that bad. Everyone has their niche. Everyone has their specialty. _Ours_ just so happens to be in entertainment. It's what we're built for. It's what we do best. What's wrong with that?"

Sylvester frowned. "You don't understand," he said. "See, I do volunteer work with L.A. Public Schools. I've _seen_ the next generation of 'toons. I've _seen_ our successors, and believe me, they've got a rough road ahead of them. Not because they're untalented, not because they're stupid or underprivileged or anything like that, but because they're so unmotivated that they can barely even look you in the eyes when they're talking to you. You should hear what some of these kids have to say. Really, it's depressing. No role models, no goals, no ideas, no creativity. I just want to help them realize that they can change the world _without_ dropping an anvil on their heads."

I choked on a mouthful of Coke. They didn't notice.

"Well, bravo, Mr. Charity," Wile E sneered sarcastically. "Discouraging the one thing we know for sure we're good at—sounds like a _brilliant_ fucking plan to me."

"I'm not _discouraging_ them from anything, Wile E," Sylvester retorted sharply, leaning precariously over his food. "I'm _presenting_ them with new opportunities, new ideas, so that maybe in the future, our chunk of the population will actually be able to look back and say that we've contributed something to society. If they wanna act, let 'em act, but that shouldn't be their only option."

"So basically you're saying… all the work we've done, all the cartoons we've filmed over the past sixty years… were just pointless rolls of celluloid that meant absolutely nothing?"

Sylvester hesitated. "In a manner of speaking."

"And why is that? Why can't _they_ be a part of our culture? Why can't acting and screenwriting and stand-up comedy be a part of our culture?"

"Because we didn't _invent_ any of those things," the cat explained. "Commercialized entertainment was _already_ a big hit in America by the time we got here. Trust me, pal, there's not _one thing_ the 'toon race has pioneered in all the years we've been around—_not one thing."_

"Yeah? Well, who cares?" Wile E snorted unrelentingly. "Who's _grading_ us on our performance?"

"Nobody," Sylvester admitted. "But that's not the point. Y'see—"

Luckily, before he could delve into another long, philosophical rant, the golden faceplate on his wristwatch lit up and chirped noisily for all to hear.

"Shit, is it that time already?" He glanced peculiarly around the table, then, his cheeks flushing momentarily upon realizing he'd completely forgotten about me. Thoroughly embarrassed, he apologized unthinkingly through a brief, resoundingly weak half-smile, and stood suddenly with his keys and cell-phone in hand.

"Good discussion, boys," he said wearily, careful to pluralize. "Another hour or so and we'd have gotten to the bottom of it, don't you think?"

"I think we've been at the bottom for a while now, Sly," Wile E replied despondently.

"Whatever," Sylvester chortled anxiously, careful to choose his words at this stage in the game. "No hard feelings, right?"

The coyote nodded slowly, sucking Sierra Mist ravenously through a straw.

Turning hesitantly towards me, then, Sylvester shrugged his shoulders. "Nice seeing you again, Daffy." He dropped one of his business cards plaintively on the table. "We haven't had a good chance to catch up lately. Give me a call sometime, alright?"

Without even looking at it—or him for that matter—I gently tucked away the tiny, square scrap of cardboard, closed my wallet, and silently folded my arms across my chest.

I didn't even look at it.

Once again adopting an incoherent look of utter displacement, Sylvester laid his hands fervently on his hips and stood there momentarily like a stone, as though waiting for a long, formal goodbye. He never received one.

"Well," he observed rhetorically, patiently dragging out each syllable, "I've got a Little League game to coach." Still not a word—not even a glance.

He scratched his head disappointedly. "So… see ya' later, I guess…"

"Yeah, see ya'," Wile E returned morosely, eyeing the unusual feline through his eyebrows as he scuttled off into the distance, slowly fading into the crowd until, at last, he'd completely disappeared from sight.

A vengeful look in my eyes, I turned to Wile E with acid on my tongue. "Alright, Hardheadipus Oedipus," I spat irritably, recalling one of his many long-dead monikers, "your buddy's had his turn; now it's mine. What about my script?"

"What about it?" he repeated annoyingly.

"Well, how much are you willing to give me for it?"

At first, he didn't answer. Staring blankly down at the synthetic tabletop in front of him, he carefully tore the plastic cap off his Styrofoam cup and reached mechanically inside with his bare hands, emerging a few seconds later with a small chunk of ice wedged delicately between his fingertips. He shoveled it swiftly into his mouth and crushed it between his teeth, gazing up at the ceiling for a moment, as though lost in thought.

"Good question," he said finally. "Very good question."

Unsure of what he meant exactly, I froze and waited for him to clarify.

"How do you feel… about your name?" he inquired flatly.

"My name? What do you mean?"

"I mean, does it bother you? Does it… _matter_ to you?"

"Well, it's certainly not the _best_ name I've ever heard of," I replied with a frown. "Daffy; adjective; silly, weak-minded, crazy. Makes it sound like you're trying to insult me every time you want my attention. Still, I don't mind it. I like the way it looks on paper, the way it sounds, the way it's spelled. Maybe if it meant something else, like—like 'incredibly brilliant one' or 'perfect in every way' or something like that, it wouldn't be so bad, y'know?"

"Yeah, but—but aside from that," he murmured, "is it, like, real important to you, or—or could you go without it?"

"What're you talking about?" I demanded fervently. "What's wrong with my name?"

"Look, don't—don't make this any tougher than it already is, okay?" he said hurriedly. "It's got nothing to do with the quality of your writing, it's just… in this case, we had to try _something_ to save face."

Save face? I didn't like the sound of that, and what did my name, of all things, have to do with it?

"Here's the deal," he explained softly. "I finished reading your script about… two weeks ago—way ahead of schedule. I just couldn't put it down, y'know? It was perfect—absolutely perfect."

My chest swelled with pride.Of course it was perfect, I grinned inwardly. _I _wrote it, remember?

"As soon as I was finished," he went on, "I started talking to my advisors about it. I was excited. I wanted to make you an offer right away, but first," he paused slowly, licking his lips, _"they_ wanted to read it."

My heart winced anxiously.

I shrugged my shoulders. "And what? They didn't like it?"

"No, no, no," he said quickly. "They liked it. They _loved_ it, in fact. They thought it was great, just like I did, only… they wanted to change something."

"Change something?" I repeated. "What? The main character? The ending? The climax? More sex?"

He didn't laugh, and he wasn't supposed to. "No, none of that," he assured me. "Let's put it this way: the only words they wanted to change were… on the cover."

"On the cover? You mean… the title?"

Somberly, he shook his head. "Below that."

But, the only thing below the title was… my name…

… my… name…

The blood froze in my veins.

"By Daffy Duck," it said. "By Daffy Duck."

Those words alone, I knew, meant just as much to me as anything else in that script, and now _they,_ too, were at risk of being tampered with? I didn't want to believe it. I didn't feel as though I could handle it. All my life I'd been stripped of everything but my name and my dignity, and now, for the first time ever, my name, too, was slowly beginning to slip away from me.

"What're you saying?" I demanded, almost rhetorically, hoping against hope he wouldn't provide the answer I dreadfully suspected.

"They," he paused, "think it would be best if… your name was removed from the writing credits."

My chest deflated like a balloon on a carpet tack. Remove my name? I thought. Remove _my_ fucking name? No. No, that wasn't possible. That wouldn't happen. That would never happen. They'd have to kill me first. They'd have to kill me and bury me in the desert where no one would ever find me. They'd have to chop me up and sell my parts to the Mongolian Barbeque in Crenshaw to get away with it. After all, they must've known that as long as I still had a breath left in my body I'd never ink a deal under those terms. Never—not in a million years, not if my life depended on it.

"Are you… okay with that?" Wile E mumbled hopefully, his voice taking on a low, vulnerable pitch.

My eyes narrowed dangerously, like a hawk swooping down over its prey. "Who the fuck do you think you're talkin' to?" I snarled ferociously.

"Look, Daffy, we can work this out—"

"No, we can't," I interjected dismissively. "You don't have a choice here, pal. If you want the script, make me an offer, but don't waste your time tryin' to carve out some ridiculous deal that we both know you're never gonna get."

"I wasn't finished," he snarled back, bearing his teeth. "Your name would only be missing from the _theatrical release._ By the time we made it past syndication, we could easily just put it back. Really, it's no big deal."

"Then why even bother to take it off in the first place?"

"Well, because, quite frankly, Daffy," he declined to look me in the eye as he spoke, "your name tends to be rather synonymous with… failure."

My heart was pounding now, the adrenaline scraping violently against the walls of my veins. "Failure? You think I'm a failure?"

"No, no, I didn't say that—"

"You might as well have," I grumbled impatiently.

"I didn't!" Several people sitting around us suddenly glanced in our direction. Wile E bit his upper lip, slightly embarrassed.

"I didn't," he said again, lowering his voice. "Listen, I know this isn't the most ideal situation in the world, but let's face it… facts are facts. Why would anybody take this movie seriously knowing that you—_you,_ of all people—wrote it?"

"Why _wouldn't_ they?" I responded shortly, unconvinced.

"C'mon, Daffy, you're a physical comedian. You're the fall-guy, the paranoid egotist who can barely keep his beak on straight. This movie you wrote, it's a… it's a political thriller, it's a creepy, suspenseful drama. It's over three hours long, for Christ's sake! Who else besides the people that actually know you would even _consider_ buying a ticket?"

"Y'know, Wile E," I muttered spitefully, "an hour ago, I never would've believed you were this full of shit…"

He folded his arms, slightly surprised, perhaps, at the sudden upstanding tone and clarity of my voice. I was even making it through my 'S's fairly well, only the occasional mispronounced drop of saliva spattering weakly on the table in front of me.

"You can't get away with this," I reasoned stoically. "Logically, it isn't possible. How're you gonna answer all those questions? What're you gonna say when people start asking you who wrote it?"

"Don't worry about it. We'll have an answer."

"Oh, really?" I snorted. "And what might that be? You gonna tell 'em _Bugs_ wrote it?" I couldn't help but laugh at that, even if it was in poor taste. Outside of checks and contracts, Bugs had barely written a self-initiated word in his life. What a Hollywood handyman, I snickered.

And yet, in the midst of everything, something seemed to be terribly wrong.

All of a sudden, there was a very different look on Wile E's face, one of irony and quiet amusement, as though he knew something that I had yet to discover, something huge, something colossal and earth-shattering. Upon seeing it, I immediately stopped laughing and the twisted, boyish smirk fell from my beak like a crisp layer of cold autumn leaves.

It couldn't be…

"You… you can't be serious…" I pleaded, suddenly every bit as weak and exposed as an injured mouse, backed helplessly into a corner. "Bugs? You're gonna… you're gonna credit _my_ work to Bugs?"

"We've already reached an agreement with him, Daffy. I'm sorry. It was the only thing we could do."

The only thing they could do? The _only_ thing they could do? My head was swimming now, my eyes bulging, pounding relentlessly against the back of my skull. My forehead felt as though it could've caved in at any moment and my legs were shaky and numb. My mind raced, desperately searching for the right word—any word—to accurately describe my position.

None of this seemed the least bit real to me at the moment; like a dream, like a terrible, unforgiving nightmare, one that I would surely wake up from at any moment without a scar to show for it. And yet, there it was, like a reflection on the water, all so crisp and clear before me, a despicable, spineless coyote waiting for my response.

"No," I said flatly. "I won't let you. It's my script, I still have the rights to it, and I'll be damned if you're gonna give it away to—to someone like _him."_

Someone like him. I wondered what I meant by that.

"Give it away? Daffy, _you're_ the one who wrote it! Besides, you haven't even heard what we're willing to offer you yet!"

"No, I don't _wanna _hear it!" This time, it was my turn to draw attention to our table. I leapt to my feet like a cat sprayed with a hose, nearly knocking over my chair in the process.

"This isn't about the money! This is about _me!"_

"Would you _sit down?!"_ Wile E hissed through gritted teeth, his eyes shifting edgily back and forth. "You're not making a point, you're just embarrassing yourself!"

Slowly, I shook my head. "You can tell your _advisors,"_ I mimed quotation marks with my index and middle fingers, "that I've decided to take my work elsewhere."

Wile E didn't look convinced. He rubbed his forehead irritably, keeping his nose down as though to hide his face.

"Take it wherever you want, Daffy, they're all gonna tell you the same thing."

"Yeah, we'll see about that," I muttered spitefully, clenching my hands into fists, resisting the urge to let loose a long, careless string of obscenities. Wile E didn't know what he was talking about. What studio in their right mind would pass up an opportunity like this? Warner Bros.—or, more appropriately, Warner _Classic—_wasn't the only L.A. production outfit I could entertain at the moment. Columbia, Miramax, New Line, Paramount, and Universal were all still viable options. One way or another, I was going to sell this script—that alone I was certain of.

My eyes danced searchingly over my surroundings—dozens of people, all frozen in place as though a curious arctic breeze had just recently blown through. They were staring at me, their mouths slightly agape, variations on the same look of mystification. Wile E, too, seemed to be growing increasingly uncomfortable under the circumstances.

"Just go," he said softly, still averse to raising his chin. "You can leave a message with my secretary when you've decided to calm down."

I frowned at that. He still thought he had a chance, the simple bastard—but for all intents and purposes, his narrow window of opportunity had all but slammed shut.

I turned to leave, but the unpleasant incursion of a single dreadful thought forced me to stop dead in my tracks.

Slowly, I turned back around. "You're, uh, gonna have to give me a ride back to my car," I muttered coldly. "I didn't bring enough for a cab."

Disbelievingly, his head rose up from behind his hands like a fuzzy, chocolate-brown sunrise. At the same time, I wondered if my alarm clock had anything to do with all this.

* * *

Wile E and I rode all the way back to his office in relative silence, only the bluesy, melancholy rhythm of Bob Marley's _Buffalo Soldier_ there to quiet the animosity between us. Nevertheless, it didn't help that Wile E's environmentally pro-active liberal-mobile was barely large enough to seat the two of us, let alone keep our shoulders from touching. There wasn't any space to think. Even with the music, the discomfort hung so thickly in the damp, recycled air that both our brains, like a pair of rotten, week-old melons, turned to utter mush inside our heads. Awestruck and edgy, I stared intensely out the window next to me, careful not to make any sudden moves lest I incur an unwelcome glance from my estranged coyote companion. Similarly, Wile E seemed to be doing his part by driving as quickly and recklessly as possible. He didn't even flinch as he turned left on red and drew a flurry of angry horns from a long line of oncoming traffic.

Luckily, we somehow managed to make it back without incident. He parked his car up front and we immediately went our separate ways, grunting uncomfortable salutations to each other as we crossed paths—I to my own vehicle and he to his cushy desk. Whether or not we'd ever negotiate again was purely up to him, I figured, sighing airily to myself as I peeled the bright yellow parking ticket off the front of my windshield—damn handicap spot…

It was almost half-past twelve when I arrived back home, just in time to instill my wife with her second medicinal shot of the day. I wasn't looking forward to it. Normally, she slept close to twenty-two hours, sunrise to sunset, yet somehow, as though her life depended on it, she always seemed to wake as I administered the middle dose. Without a nurse to lend a helping hand, I was forced to feed her, clean her, and clothe her, yet, at the same time, for reasons unexplainable, I rarely ever spoke to her, and if my instincts proved the least bit receptive, she seemed to hate that more than anything else.

I washed my hands in the master-bathroom sink, staring myself down in the enormous mirror which spanned almost the entire length of the wall. Water splashed up on the glass. I didn't wipe it off, just watched it roll down in beads, long soapy streaks, staining the surface.

There was a case of syringes in the bathroom closet—syringes I carefully rinsed and sterilized before every use—and a thick, tamper-proof plastic box containing several month-long supplies of Melissa's medication. Her doctor had done his part in plugging it as "state of the art" and "highly advanced." Unfortunately, while it did seem to keep her heart pounding, it also left her overwhelmingly weak and debilitated, not to mention the simple fact that a single solitary dose would've cost most people an arm and a leg. Even for someone as affluent as myself, the monthly payments were beginning to become a hindrance.

Drawing up a needle-full, I returned to her bedside with my thumb on the plunger, praying to God she wouldn't open her eyes. The I.V. unit connected to her arm appeared to have gone dry some time ago and her breathing was short and labored. With one hand, I gently brushed a few molting feathers from her forehead and attempted to gauge her temperature in the process. She was cold—ice cold. Her eyes had rings around them and her bill was pale and discolored, dotted here and there with sallow splotches of beige and eggshell. She barely looked anything like the duck I used to know, like the duck whose hand I took in marriage. And to think, less than two years ago I might've spied her in the living room reading sappy murder-mystery novels or dancing lightheartedly around the kitchen, toasting a B.L.T. sandwich to Stevie Wonder's greatest hits. What I wouldn't give for a chance to turn back the clock… for a chance to make it all better… for the both of us…

I dropped to one knee like a monk paying his respects and cautiously took hold of her left arm. The soft spongy skin around the artery never put up much of a fight and, thus, the needle went in fairly easily. Depressing the plunger all in one fluid motion, I regretfully deposited yet another dry, intoxicating dose of thin, colorless liquid into her sinewy veins and pulled the syringe out as quickly as possible.

She reached for my hand. My body froze. Her fingers interlaced with mine. She pulled me closer, her pale gray eyes just barely open. She squeezed, and neither of us spoke for several minutes after that. We only stared at each other, eye-to-eye, beak-to-beak, in absolute silence.

Inside, my heart was doing backflips, wearing itself thin, pounding against the walls of my ribcage as though it desired nothing more than to escape. I swallowed hard, hoping against hope she'd let go of me, hoping against hope she'd fall back asleep. But she didn't. She couldn't, not when she had me here like this, not when she had me cornered.

"H—hey," I whimpered shakily, my features all falling simultaneously. "How do you feel this morning?"

At first, she didn't answer. Then she pursed her lips and took a deep breath.

"Alone," she managed, her eyes still attached to me, searching.

I held her hand in my own, gently caressing her palm. "I know. I'm sorry. I—I didn't want to wake you. You were sound asleep… when I left…"

"You… left?" she murmured, her cavernous stare growing steadily wider.

"Yeah," I nodded. "Yeah, just for a couple of hours. I had a meeting."

"A meeting?" she repeated wearily. "With who?"

I touched her shoulder, started to say "don't worry about it," then decided against it. I felt guilty trying to distance myself from her. She deserved to know what I'd been doing with my time, no matter how reluctant I was to tell her. After all, no matter how different, she was still my wife.

"Wile E," I said quickly, swallowing my pride. "You remember Wile E, right?" She blinked. "Well… well, he and I, we—"

My voice broke off without warning. My name, I thought. _My fucking name!_

"We… we… we might be working together," I stammered profusely, feigning a confident smile.

I was crumbling inside, the reality of it all just beginning to sink in, like sweat beneath my feathers. I was lying—lying to _her—_sugarcoating everything I'd sworn I wouldn't… just to make it easier on myself, just to avoid repeating all those tasteless, discouraging remarks lingering around the back of my skull. My throat tightened up like a frightened serpent as I coughed out more and more.

"He said he might be willing to—to buy my script," I lied. "Y'know, the script I've been working on since Speedy's wedding?" Part of me felt as though saying it aloud might've helped it come true. Part of me felt as though it already had.

"They're gonna turn it into a movie," I sputtered, failing to gulp down the knot in my throat. "Wile E's gonna direct it."

"That's wonderful, Daffy." She smiled loftily, her eyes fluttering. "That's wonderful."

"And when it's all said and done," I added, "I'm gonna take you to the premiere."

Her entire face went blank. Her upper lip quivered dissonantly. Slowly, she retracted her hand.

"No. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't make promises… that can't be kept."

I almost reached for it—her hand—just to take it back, just to hold it in my own again, just to feel that eerie, receding warmth… just one more time. But I didn't.

"C'mon, don't—don't talk like that," I responded brightly. "By this time next year, you'll be all better, trust me. You'll be able to breathe again, to—to walk again..." I trailed off unconvincingly. "It could go back into remission at anytime, that's what the doctors said. It has to."

Suddenly, she seemed slightly perturbed.

"Why?" One word.

I cracked my knuckles and looked away from her—past her.

"Because I love you." Four words—short ones, meaningless.

**You have no idea  
what you're getting yourself into.**


	3. Clichéd and Obvious

Chapter Three  
**Clichéd and Obvious**

"I've been doing a lot of thinking about my name recently," I explained in monotone. "People always ask me what my parents were thinking when they gave it to me."

Stern and attentive, Dr. Florence Macy leisurely crossed her legs and chewed for a bit on the end of her pencil. "Any ideas?" she inquired leadingly.

"I don't know. Maybe they wanted to challenge me, to give me something to shoot for—or maybe they wanted to encourage me to stand up for myself, to overcome it someday."

"Of course, your parents were killed long before you had the chance to ask them yourself."

I nodded, thoroughly impressed at how quickly she was able to gloss over such a dark, aching memory without so much as a break in her sentence. She knew me all too well, I thought. To her, my brain was an enormous, hacker-proof, titanium bank vault to which only she and I held the keys.

"Do you think you've done it, then?" she asked. "Overcome its true definition, I mean?"

She was an expert at posing questions I didn't fully wish to answer. At first, I stalled; however, her stony, persuasive gaze had already gotten the best of me.

"No," I said at last. "Daffy's still daffy in my world."

"But that doesn't bother you," she concluded mechanically. "That's _never_ bothered you, and it never will, not as long as you're _you._ You don't care what other people think, so anything your parents might've desired for you is irrelevant. No, that's not what's chapped your hide this week. It's something else, something different, something more… _important_ to you…"

My eyes grew wide around the edges; my heart fluttered uneasily. She was getting closer, always closer, picking me apart piece-by-piece like a model airplane. I cleared my throat, tried to relax. This was good for me, I shakily reassured myself. This was exactly what I needed, exactly what I'd _always_ needed.

"I haven't even asked you yet," she drove on fearlessly, "how'd your meeting go yesterday with Wile E?"

I hesitated. "Well, it—it wasn't exactly a _meeting,_ per se," I stammered profusely. "We went out and—and got brunch with an old friend of his, and after he—after his friend left, we—we started to talk about my script and…"

I trailed off. A knowing smile crossed her face.

"I thought so," she observed slyly. "What did he say?"

Slowly, I shut my eyes and leaned back in my seat as though an invisible blow to the head had suddenly knocked me unconscious.

"He said," I murmured reluctantly, "he said they weren't going to credit me for writing it. They were going to keep my name out of it."

The explanation appeared to catch her off-guard for she immediately stopped scratching at her legal pad and glanced up at me.

Neither of us spoke for several minutes after that, only the metronomic _tick_ of the circular wall clock poking pin-sized holes in the arduous silence. I exhaled deeply. _Remove my name, remove my name—_the words kept repeating themselves over and over inside my head. I had barely come to terms with the situation myself; nonetheless, it felt good to get it off my chest, to put it under the microscope, if even for a moment.

"Did he say why?" she wondered aloud.

"Yeah," I nodded. "He said my name was… synonymous with failure."

"Synonymous with failure," she repeated softly, staring deeply into my eyes. "Well, at least we know he isn't trying to make _my_ job any easier."

I chuckled politely, hoping to ease some of the tension. It didn't work.

"How do you feel about what he said?"

I glanced at the floor, started playing footsie nervously with the ottoman in front of me. "How do _I_ feel about it?" My voice was small and shaky, like a helpless housefly begging for its life in a room full of rolled-up newspapers. "I—I guess I feel… disappointed."

"Do you think he was telling the truth?"

"No." Even I was surprised at how blatantly dishonest my answer sounded. "Well, maybe—maybe a little."

"What about your script? Did you leave it on the table? Is there still room to negotiate? Are the two of you still on good terms?"

Slowly, I shook my head. "I didn't want to hear what he had to offer. Besides, I don't see how I could negotiate with someone who thinks that lowly of me."

She pursed her lips, a perplexed look coming over her face. "Why is it that you care what he has to say?"

I wasn't certain how to respond. My reaction to Wile E's words—emotionally, at least—had seemed so natural and frank at the time, so instinctive and unconscious; was she actually suggesting that it hadn't been?

"I don't know. Maybe it was the circumstances."

"What circumstances?"

Here it comes.

"They weren't just going to take off my name," I explained hesitantly, "they were going to replace it."

"Replace it? With what?"

"With—" (I took a deep breath and exhaled.) "—with Bugs's name."

She wasted no time in her assessment, not missing the point, but expanding upon it. "So you feel as though you're being unjustly compared to Bugs." Her eyes were unwavering. "You haven't been judged fairly, based on your own merits, because everyone refuses to separate you from Bugs and Bugs from you." She paused, allowing me to mull it over for a moment. "Reasonable?"

I nodded, unable to form a more appropriate explanation of my own. "Everything's always come easier to him." My words were blunt and dry, pitiless towards everyone but myself. "I don't trust him."

"Isn't he your friend?" Her question was rhetorical. "Shouldn't friends be trustworthy?"

"Of course they _should _be," I replied distastefully, "but he _is_ my friend, and I _don't _trust him. He would've stolen my work if I hadn't stood in his way."

"So, then," her voice dropped to a low, undercutting murmur, "is he really your friend?"

Suddenly I couldn't help but wonder. The way I'd been talking about him like this, it seemed more in keeping in line with the roles we'd played as performers over the years than with the relationship we'd built as friends. There was so much bitterness in my speech, more than there should've been, more than I wanted there to be, yet I couldn't seem to quell it, and Dr. Florence Macy appeared to be savoring every moment of it.

Her dark eyes surveyed my features once more, slowly, calculatingly. Briefly, I met her gaze and felt the sting of her wildest judgments entering my brain with the brilliant suddenness of telepathy. It was as if her gaze alone had somehow managed to convey all her thoughts, all her conclusions, all her assumptions, directly to me without abridgment.

She didn't much care for Bugs it seemed, at least the version of him I'd depicted to her, and she didn't much care for my willingness to defend him either. To her, our friendship was the type which should have been relegated purely to long-distance phone calls, where Bugs's charm and persuasiveness would be all but useless, where he would no longer be able to use me in the way she undoubtedly perceived that he had.

Unfortunately, as she well knew, distancing the two of us from one another was simply not an option. It never would be. We were actors, and actors lived in L.A. Instead, she would revert to plan B. She would ask me to confront him, and I would agree wholeheartedly, or risk dropping into another long, unfulfilling pattern of submission which would inevitably lead me nowhere, except directly under Bugs's thumb.

"You and Bugs went golfing the other day," she stated plainly. "Tell me about it."

Her candor startled me.

"There's not much to tell," I replied weakly. "We played for a little while, then it started to rain." A short pause punctuated my explanation. "He asked me to take care of his wife for a week next month."

I had hoped that if I were to glaze over that last detail without showing much emotion she wouldn't have bothered to make an issue of it. I should've known better.

"So now you're doing favors for a friend you barely trust?" She kept her tone in check, her words in a rhythm, her demeanor as far from accusatory as possible.

"I—I couldn't help it," I protested. "He shamed me into it."

She frowned at that, gnawing on the tip of her pencil like an anxious gerbil. "How well do you know his wife?"

I shook my head. "Not well."

Her frown grew steadily wider. "Daffy," she said quietly, "do you ever intend on standing up to him?"

"Standing up to him?" Somehow the task seemed terribly daunting at the moment. "I—I'm not very good at that," I remarked unfortunately. "I've tried; it never seems to go anywhere."

Her stoic expression beckoned me to continue. Reluctantly, a deep sigh escaping my lungs, I obliged.

"When Bugs and I first moved to Los Angeles, we didn't have much money, so when our checks started coming in regularly, we would always go out and celebrate on payday." I had already said too much, I thought, my mind and my bill unpleasantly detached. "One night there was this big party in the green room at Warner Bros. Everyone who was anyone in showbiz turned out for it. Naturally, there was a lot of drinking, a lot of smoking; not much order to the thing. I wasn't so eager to get my toes wet so early in my career, but Bugs—well, he had more guts and a better attitude than I ever did. He was from the 'life is worth living' school of thought, and I could never seem to comprehend that."

"So you didn't participate?"

"No, I—I did my fair share. There was certainly enough to go around. In fact, if it hadn't been for that night, I probably wouldn't have started smoking; I wouldn't have had to go through all the trouble to quit." The urge to smile suddenly overwhelmed me, but my face refused to reveal the slightest emotion, settling into a cold, inexpressive stare, gazing blankly past her, beyond her.

"Bugs was a different story," I went on. "Like I said, he was never afraid to try anything once. He met his attorney there—only, the guy wasn't so clean back then—and, well," my voice faded and crackled somberly, recalling the incident with bitter clarity, "he did something he shouldn't have."

Macy was on the edge of her seat, yet her subtlety and coolness of demeanor could have easily fooled me into thinking otherwise.

"Drugs," I stated flatly, with such grim finality that the words themselves could have clattered noisily upon the table in front of me and not have seemed the least bit out-of-line. The doctor's face, too, had sunken in kind. She wore a look of pity, disillusionment, and utter incredulity, yet appeared to blame me for none of it. Hadn't I been obligated to steer my best friend clear of such extreme circumstances?

"The guy had a bag of white powder with him," I explained dully, "cocaine, I'm pretty sure. And Bugs, he… I guess you could say he got caught up in the moment."

"But you stood up to him?"

"Well, I wasn't really in any condition to do it that night," I snorted, "but the next day, I—I tried to. I reminded him that we didn't come all the way out to Hollywood just to burn out in the first three years."

"And how did he take it?"

"He agreed with me—and that was it."

"So he dismissed your point of view by pretending to sympathize with it." A statement, not a question.

"That's the way it always works." My reply was equally straight-faced. "I never got through to him. About a week later he was giving me a ride home when…"

The sauna came to mind—that slimy, sudsy, snow-colored smear silently suffocating his silver fur. I still didn't want to believe it.

"There was this white stuff on his arm," I continued, "like soap suds, in his sweat. Of course, I can't presume to know what was really going on inside his body—an allergic reaction, a skin condition, chicken pox, whatever—but I always knew it had something to do with that night. I think he knew it, too."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I just saw it again the other day." My head fell to my chest, completely open and defenseless. "After we finished golfing he started sweating it out again, just like he had before."

"Did he say anything?"

"Just that it wasn't a habit. He must've known I wouldn't forget."

She offered only a concurrent nod, her pen flicking sporadically across her legal pad, her eyes effectively avoiding mine for the first time all session. At last, she looked up, removed her rimmed glasses, and let out a long, exhausted sigh.

"You've got some things to accomplish before our next meeting, Daffy," she began dryly, eyebrows raised. "First and foremost, I want you to go to Bugs, sit down with him, talk to him; don't be afraid of him. You need to let him know what's on your mind—everything we talked about here today. Can you do that for me?"

Slowly, my head rose from my chest. She wasn't going to back down until I agreed to her terms. I decided to save her the effort of convincing me.

"Yes." My lisp effectively killed any seriousness which may have strengthened the sincerity of my response, yet she accepted it readily, without argument.

She went on for a while after that, but my attention had already been diverted, buried under a mountain of spineless anticipation. I didn't really have to do any of this, I didn't really have to listen to her at all, but I knew that it was in my best interests to do so.

That couldn't possibly be a good sign—not for me.

**You have no idea  
what you're getting yourself into.**


	4. Building Towards Zero

Chapter Four  
**Building Towards Zero**

The path from my therapist's office to my car and the commute from the parking lot to Bugs Bunny's front door all streamed by in a blur. Before I knew it, or had had adequate time to prepare myself—which, in my case, was simply an oblique euphemism for "chicken out"—I was rapping on his door with two knuckles, my heart racing, my mind drawing a blank as if being controlled by another entity.

For a long time, there was no answer, not even the sound of tensely shuffling feet on the other side. The gentle chirp of a thousand songbirds above my head and the steamy crackle of my car's slumbering engine, however, somehow spurred me to knock a second time.

The door swung open almost immediately, startling me a bit. There, in its wake, a look of pained disturbance shrouding her face, appearing as though she may have shed tears not long ago, stood Honey Bunny, Bugs' slim, illustrious, young wife, a cordless phone clenched tightly in her left hand.

"Um… hi," I babbled awkwardly, caught off-guard. On level ground, she and I were nearly the same height; with the unevenness of the doorstep, however, she towered over me like a giant, her prying eyes strangely astute and condemnatory.

She made no attempt to hurry my explanation.

"Is—is Bugs home?" I felt like a sheepish fourth grader visiting his neighbor's house for a "play date." A rusted Huffy bike and tattered baseball mitt were all I needed to complete the illusion.

Honey seemed to have painted a similar mental image. "He's out back," she replied shortly, her voice a bit weak, "playing with his toys." With that, she closed the door in my face; not a slam, but firm enough to deter me from knocking anymore.

'And _that's _the woman he expects me to drive around for a week?' I wondered snidely to myself.

Around the side of the Bunny household, a long, winding slope covered in gravel curved down to a cluttered, unkempt garden where hundreds of innocent flowers, many of them bundled together in pots and cartons, were shipped each year to die. Bugs had never been much of a green thumb—despite his adeptness at digging holes—and Honey was, quite frankly, a bit too materialistic to bother with constantly tending to any living organism, much less one she hadn't desired in the first place. I knew for a fact that the garden had been an anniversary present—from Bugs to her—and while she'd feigned excitement at the time, she had quickly shifted virtually all of the responsibility onto _his_ shoulders in the years that followed, quietly reminding her admittedly well-intentioned husband to stick to jewelry, candy, and Hallmark cards in the future.

On this day, Bugs appeared to have abandoned the garden entirely, switching his ADD-shortened focus to the semi-new riding lawnmower parked, all by its lonesome, in the tool shed nearby. From what I could tell at a distance, it appeared to be leaking oil rather conspicuously, thus rendering it completely useless for the time being.

Bugs had undoubtedly heard me coming—the crunch of the gravel underfoot effectively amplified each step—yet he feigned as though he hadn't, instead waiting for me to make first contact. He must have presumed I was still cross with him over Wile E's under-the-table deal. Oddly enough, I found it quite difficult to become angry at the moment; rather, I felt more vulnerable, more uneasy about the whole situation. Every ounce of spite and ill will which had overcome me earlier in the day had since festered and vanished.

"Bugsy," I greeted, as brightly and lightheartedly as possible, my voice small and adolescent, "what's, uh… what's goin' on?"

The hare slowly looked up from beneath the hull of the lawnmower, a wrinkled look of distaste and irritation on his face. "Not much," he replied intensely; then, as if realizing who I was for the first time, his mood abruptly softened. "What brings you down here, out o' 'da clear blue sky?"

I wasn't sure how to respond. My mind and my bill briefly fought for supremacy.

"I—I have to—" _('Need! Need,_ you fucking idiot!') "—I _need_ to talk to you, um… about something—" ('Something _important!_ Don't forget important!') "—something _important."_ My heart sank. Even my insides were at war with each other.

"Lemme guess," Bugs sighed, completely oblivious, "it's 'da script thing." He clasped his hands together. "Daffy, I'm sorry. I swear to God I didn't know. Wile E made it sound like you'd already agreed to it."

Suddenly, every ambiguity sharpened and slid into focus. "You believed him?" My voice was critical, judgmental, almost mocking.

He sighed again, more heavily this time. "Okay, maybe I did jump 'da gun a lil' bit, but I didn't mean to steal your thunder. Ya' have to understand, I thought I was helpin' _you_ out."

Subconsciously I resented the implication that I should need _his_ help to achieve a green-light on anything I might have lent my name to. Regardless, I made no mention of the feeling. Fighting down my arrogance and natural pride was often easier said than done, yet in this case, thankfully, only the reverse was true.

"So, uh," Bugs' eyes drifted sheepishly away from mine, "what's 'da deal wit' you two anyway? Are ya' goin' forward wit' production?"

I repeated the story as I had to Dr. Macy. The hare's reaction was far more empathetic than I had expected.

"I'll tell ya' what, doc," he assured me with convincing sincerity, "tomorrow I'll go down and have a nice, long talk wit' Wile E myself. Don't you worry 'bout a thing. I'll convince him he doesn't need _my_ name to sell _your _product." He patted me jovially on the back. "How's 'dat sound, ol' buddy?"

"That sounds—" I was almost speechless, _"—great…"_

With every poisonous realization my therapist had helped me to reach regarding Bugs still fresh in my memory, I was utterly astonished at the generosity and sheer benevolence which he now displayed towards me. This was not an enemy, I told myself. This was not a person who would attempt to hurt or willingly take advantage of me. This was a friend, a best friend, one whose kindness and thoughtfulness was greater than words alone could describe.

I shoved my hesitant promise to Dr. Macy to the back of my mind, suddenly feeling as though _she_ were the one whose motives I should have paid more attention to, whose judgments I should have questioned more thoroughly.

"Is 'dat all you wanted to talk about?" Bugs inquired gently, not in a manner which would have suggested that he had tired of my company, but in one which graciously offered me the chance to spark the next wave of discussion unfettered. There was also a certain inflection in his tone which seemed to suggest that he knew there was more on my mind than I had originally put forth.

Pausing for a moment, swallowing the last of my concerns—for, at the moment, they seemed incredibly small, petty, and insignificant—I nodded.

"Yeah, that's it." The words flowed effortlessly, unhindered, as brightly as ever. It was as if an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders. "What's new with you?"

The rabbit shrugged his shoulders, a look of weariness playing over his features. "Nothin'," he sighed, "unfortunately."

I could sense his dishonesty. "Are you sure?" Something was distracting him, preoccupying his thoughts, tiring his nerves.

"Yeah, just," his voice broke off feebly. "Me and Honey aren't gettin' along so well right now. 'Dat's it."

"Oh. Is it serious?"

"Nah, nah. Just one o' 'dose things."

It was a conversation destined to go nowhere, too personal to last. "I'm sorry," I murmured, my voice dropping an octave on the last syllable. "Maybe it'll be good for the two of you to get away from each other then." Realizing how inconsiderate that sounded, I cleared my throat and hastily tacked on: "I mean, when you go up to San Francisco next month."

He didn't seem to notice. "Yeah." A light breeze rushed through the garden, rustling his ears. "Maybe it will be."

My eyes floated absentmindedly towards the sky. "Looks like rain," I pointed out, shoving my hands into my pockets. Lately, it seemed almost every day appeared that way for at least an hour or two, a dull, opaque canopy of silver clouds overtaking the rich, misty blue like a massive curtain falling over the city, fading every detail, dispiriting every person unlucky enough to be caught in the gloom.

Bugs' response was even duller than I'd expected.

"Yeah. It does," he said, turning his back to me.

**You have no idea  
what you're getting yourself into.**


End file.
